Department of government have always been focal points for tension and fluidity within academic institutions. The genuine need for alertness to new trends, the constant demand for viewpoints that are tuned to the minute have made this field one of the most difficult to teach and administer. A government department, as a unit, must never cease its labors lest it fall behind its dynamic subject. At Harvard, not only the subject matter but the tremendous numbers of new concentrators have strained the ingenuity of members of the department.

There are twelve men now teaching government under permanent appointments. One of these men is a Dean, occupied with administrative duties that leave little time for academic work. Two more are nearing retirement and thus are most justifiably shedding much of the tension and responsibility accumulated over long and distinguished careers. A fourth teaches only at the graduate level, while still another professor will be unable to return from Washington for another year. The recent announcement of Professor Friedrich's intended return to work with the government was balanced by Dean Hanford's resumption of teaching chores next fall. In all, seven members of tested stature and calibre must carry a program designed to meet the needs of 300 concentrators and a larger number of non-concentrators taking single courses.

Event the best talent must fall short when spread as thinly as this. Perhaps the greatest inadequacy lies in the division of international relations, where only a vast expansion in personnel and budget will equip the proposed regional government-studies project. Here the University has fallen into a secondary position while Columbia and Cornell have added this vital training to their curricula. Men who attempt to draw any sort of preparation for the Foreign Service or other overseas opportunities find this gap in their undergraduate studies a definite obstacle.

Coupled with the quantitative weakness at the top is a glaring deficiency of assistant professors and annual instructors, just one step below. Although the same weakness is present everywhere in the College today, it is a greater problem in Government where these young men are called upon for the fresh insight, the new interpretations that would lend dynamism to the entire organization. A group of older men do not necessarily lack vitality; but the live political issues of the 20's and 30's are not the live issues of the 40's. In order to get the same top-quality treatment of these burning contemporary questions, younger men must be encouraged, and encouraged with the importance of their contribution kept fully in mind. The creation of even half-dozen assistant professorships would not be too high a payment to make, it would attract to Harvard, or keep at Harvard the best of our generation of political scholars. For a generation lost in Government is the same as centuries in many other fields.

One of the great political questions of this generation has been the influence of econimies on polities. Here, the department has shown a lag that can the traced to the overall interest of the faculty in other phases of the work plus the disinclination of any University to apoint left-wingers. At a time when control of the economy is the hottest potato around, it is unfortunate that only one course deals with the political approach to the issue, and then only partially. A part of the answer may lie in the left-wing leanings that seem to pervade the thinking of many political economists. The fact remains that there are no thoroughly left-wing socialists on the faculty when an understanding of this viewpoint is essential and when universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Williams, in our own country, do not deem the viewpoint dangerous.

The government department today is weak: weak in numbers, limited on offerings, short on youth. If it is to expand to meet what the undergraduate body expects of it, this expansion must be channeled into the fields that deal with the political problems of the day and thus meet rising student interests. More than the college, the country expects it.